updated 05:45 pm EST, Mon December 27, 2010

Kobo comments on its strongest holiday season yet

Kobo on Monday has issued a statement that talks about strong sales of its hardware and e-books over the holiday season, following competitor Amazon's similar announcement from earlier in the day. While exact numbers weren't revealed, Kobo did say more than one million readers connected to Kobo's online service, with "hundreds of thousands" of the company's eReaders activated every day since Christmas Eve. This helped the company to achieve its highest e-book download rate to date.

The vague claims from Kobo include a near doubling of the total registered number of users compared to six weeks earlier, a 50-fold increase in purchases compared to the same holiday weekend in 2009 and a five-time increase of the company's previous best weekend of sales in December.

Both its own e-readers and the iPad app accounted for the majority of e-book sales.

Amazon's claims were similarly vague, but the company did say Christmas day was the best ever single day for new Kindle activations. It's still thought to have sold far more than Kobo, with as many as eight million Kindles estimated to be trading hands in 2010, most of those in the second half of the year.

Yes, but

I was one of the many who activated their Kobo on Boxing Day. And today I was one of the many who returned it. What a clunky machine! Slow, hard to enter passwords, etc. with its on-screen keyboard & non-touch-sensitive screen, won't sync with Linux - couldn't stand it. I've ordered a Kindle. Pity they're sold out & can't send it for a month.